My best friend is a student at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and this week I took a two hour plane ride from Berlin to visit her. She made sure that we stopped behind the historic Magdalen (pronounced Maw-dlen) College so that I could see Magdalen Grove. Also known as Deer Park, Magdalen Grove is home to a herd of fallow deer.
Fallow deer are fairly large, a bit taller and heavier than a fully grown Great Dane. The ones that I saw were chestnut brown and light blonde, although fallow deer can range in color from completely white to entirely black.
I was enchanted. Up until now, I’d only ever spotted a spooked deer or two on the side of the highway. It was a very different experience to see a herd of deer all relaxing together among the autumn trees, undisturbed by their human onlookers.
These deer live in a park behind a college at Oxford. Most fallow deer in Great Britain today are descendants of deer who were brought to the area for hunting in royal forests around the 10th century. I couldn’t find much information about where the deer in this particular park came from, but it’s likely that they were brought to Oxford for sport as well.
